thaFormula.com - How did starting a production company A Touch of Jazz come about for you?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - I started that because I think I was smart enough to know that people wasn't going to accept Jazzy Jeff doing a solo album. So it was almost done so that I could hide behind it and just pretty much do whatever I wanted to do. I kind of hid behind it and if I wanted to experiment doing some soul or rock, I could. I didn't start it off to be what it became, which was definitely cool. It was kind of like a way that I could explore and do a lot of the stuff that I always wanted to do.

thaFormula.com - So you must have been surprised when it took off the way it did?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Well you know what, it was a journey. I started trying to do that and then what it turned into is I like all kinds of music. I wanted to do all kinds of music and I was just looking for people like me that didn't just want to listen or even experiment with just one type of music. So it was just kind of finding people that were a little more musically open minded. For years and years and years we tried to get on projects and I just think that the world just really wasn't in it. It wasn't pretty much until we did the Jill Scott project that kind of opened everything up. I don't want to say it was a surprise but it was a definite sigh of relief because it's almost like trying to do something for about 8 years and people telling you that you are doing it wrong or people telling you it's not gonna work, then it working kind of validates it and I felt that I wasn't the only person in the world that wanted to hear something like that. So that I think was the biggest joy for me of just realizing that you know what, I was kind of on the right path.

thaFormula.com - When you guys were working on the Jill Scott project, what did you think of the material and did you already envision what would end up happening with that?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Not at all. One of the things that we did a lot is that we did a project the way we wanted to do it. It wasn't industry driven. We basically did 11 songs and I burnt it unto a CD and I played it for everybody I knew. I gave it out like it was out there. It was like, I like good music, I think this is good, let me give it to somebody else who likes good music and that's pretty much how the whole thing kind of started. We didn't want it to be dictated by the industry and it was one of those things like "you know what let's play this for some industry people and if they don't like it let's just say thank you and keep walking." I don't want someone to turn around and say "oh this is great but you need to change this or that." This is what we want it to be and were not gonna change it.

thaFormula.com - And when you did play it for people, what was the reaction?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - People were blown away. It was really funny because I had a friend that worked at Sony at the time that I gave it to him and he played it in the office and he gave somebody else a copy who gave somebody else a copy. Then it turned into one of those things that they were playing it in the office like she was signed to Sony. People didn't really know what this was. It was just kind of like "wow this is really great, who is this?" That's how it kind of went down and the buzz kind of started in order for someone to say "hey man what are you guys doing with this?"

thaFormula.com - Basically it went down how it should go down right?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Exactly.

thaFormula.com - When you assembled your team for A Touch Of Jazz, how did you go about putting the team of producers together?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Well you know its kind of like you meet creative people through other creative people and I think it just got to a point where there was about 9 of us. Now understand that the group of A Touch of Jazz that became really popular was probably like the 4th group. The earlier groups were from James Poyser to Vikter Duplaix. It was a whole lot of people that have gone on to do other things that were in the same mix. It was almost like nobody was in that position. Everybody was kind of fighting to try to like "you know let's get some recognition, some notoriety and try and get some of the music we do out there" and that's pretty much how it started. But it was crazy because it was about 9 of us and I've just always been a firm believer that you know what, it's gonna weed itself out. There are people that just think things are supposed to happen overnight that just say "you know what this is taking too long" and it just kind of weeded itself out to the 6 that pretty much did the Jill Scott, Musiq Soulchild and Floetry stuff.

thaFormula.com - Who is A Touch Of Jazz as of now?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Well you know what, right now A Touch Of Jazz is me. What was funny and I wasn't really expecting it through the success of A Touch Of Jazz, it became unlike what I wanted. I started A Touch Of Jazz because I wanted to do something that was a little different, try to do some real music and what happened is once you become successful then you become popular. Once you become popular then you have the unfortunate incident of possibly becoming a fad and I looked at it like what we did was real music because how in the world can you call real music a fad? I got bothered because it started turning into the, "oh well you know the Neo-Soul music is played out." Well first of all I'm trying to figure out who gave it the terminology "Neo-Soul" and why does it have to play out when I look at what we were doing as some real music. It started to hurt my feelings for someone to say that real music is played out. And with the success everybody just wanted to go their own way like before. Also, I found myself going from the studio to sitting behind a desk answering phone calls and that's not why I got into this. I've always been somebody that pushed buttons and made music and when it just got to a point where people looked at it like this is a business, that you've got to sit behind a desk and everybody wants to know what's gonna be such and such, I got really turned off. It was crazy because that is what kind of sparked me to do my first record and what kind of sparked me to go back out on the road because I just wanted a sense of how it was. It was a little bit different going on a road playing for a club for 2000 people that just wanted to hear good music. I used that almost as my escape from the business.

thaFormula.com - When you decided to do your first solo album Jeff, what was the first thing you did?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Being able to do a project when someone gives you 100 percent creative freedom as much as I said that's what I wanted, when someone gives that to you, it blew my mind. I'm like "okay now that somebody gave me the creative freedom to do what I want, what the hell am I gonna do?" So it took me about 6 months of really sitting down thinking about what's my approach to have the ability to do whatever I want. So that's what it was. It's kind of like you got a chance to really sit down and figure out who are you as a producer, what makes you up as a producer and what kind of records you want to do.

thaFormula.com - So when you decided on what to do, who was the first person you reached out to?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Well you know a lot of it was some of the internal stuff with guys like my introduction through Kev Brown to guys like Raheem Devaughn. It wasn't so much about established artists as much as it was about creative people and a lot of my creative people around that time were people who weren't established. People who didn't have a preconceived notion about how the industry was and they just wanted to do good music. It's even greater to look at guys like Kev Brown who you didn't know about, Oddisee who you didn't know about, Raheem Devaughn who you didn't know about and that now there is a bunch of people that know these guys.

thaFormula.com - Do you feel that because of what you did with A Touch Of Jazz that people were then ready for your first album?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - I think this was the result of my relationship with Peter of BBE and him doing his Beat Generation series. He was like "listen I'm doing this series that I'm basically going to producers and I'm asking them to do a record on what makes them up as a producer." I think the hard part for me was like "wow you know what, I'm Jill but you know what as much as I'm Jill, I'm Will." So I sat down and said "but you know what I love Hip-Hop and I love Soul and Jazz, but I'm a turntablist." So it took about 6 months for me to realize "you know what Jeff, you are all of that. Just be all of that. Stop trying to put yourself into a category and just be everything that you are on your record," which was very refreshing to even have the opportunity to do that.

thaFormula.com - When the record did drop were you happy with the way it was received and the results of the record?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Yeah, you know the older that I get I think I go through producer insecurities. I think I was a little apprehensive of what the perception was gonna be and I think I was shocked when people started saying "wow this is really great, the fusion of music with this person and this person and the direction of it." I think I was really, really happy with that. I think that kind of really changed my focus on music.

thaFormula.com - In those 5 years since you dropped "The Magnificent," what have you been doing and why did you decide to drop "The Return Of The Magnificent" now in 2007 5 years later?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - A lot of that was because I ended up going on the road from "The Magnificent" and I ended up basically not coming home. I pretty much do close to 200 dates a year. That whole perspective of it really changed me and kind of opened my mind up because it was like "wow what am I doing in Hong Kong? Why am I in Singapore? Why am I in South Africa? I'm here and all of these people know about your record, all of these people love your music, all of these people love real music and you are just playing music for people to enjoy?" That really changed my life because it really made me think outside the box because to the average commercial consumer, they are possibly saying "where is Jeff and what is Jeff doing?" and they have no idea that I just played a festival for 100,000 people in Singapore. It makes you realize that the world is so much bigger but at the same token it's not that big at all. The funny thing is then you find yourself bumping into guys that you wonder where they been and what they been doing and they doing the same thing your doing.

thaFormula.com - Do you think that is what has helped sustain a lot of the artists that aren't as big over here?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - I think that at the end of the day, people go where they are appreciated. It's not that the appreciation level isn't in the United States, it's just that so much of the commercial side is pushed more than just the real music side and it may not be that way or to that extent outside of the United States. So people have a tendency to go where they feel loved. It's easy for someone in the United States to say "oh such and such is a has been or he's not doing anything." Then you go to Japan and this guy goes on stage. There is a lot of times that I feel bad for the United States because I'm like "you're missing out on so much good music" because unfortunately you turn on the radio and you only hear 10 songs.

thaFormula.com - With "The Return Of The Magnificent" LP, why did you decide to produce the whole record yourself this time and not bring back the same team?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Exactly. I think more then anything, what I was longing for is, I wanted to create a 2007 "my mom's basement." I started realizing and thinking, when was the best time I had making music? And it was when I did not have a care in the world. It wasn't about bills, it wasn't about family, it wasn't about society, selling records, or commercial appeal. I got my equipment, I got a sandwich and I'm in the studio just making beats. I immediately started to try to find ways to recreate that and it was crazy because I actually shut the studio down that I had for 15 years. I moved from the location that I had been living for 18 years and moved out into the suburbs and put a huge giant studio in my basement but I kind of created it in a way that this was the 2007 "my mom's basement." When I was in my mom's basement I didn't have other producers so this is one of those things of like, and not to say that I would never go back to that, but this to me, this record needed to be "let me go in the basement with my family and just lock myself in here and get that vibe back."

thaFormula.com - Now a record that people have rally been talking about is "Practice" with J-Live. How did you guys come up with the idea to flip Allen Iverson's voice like that?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - I used J-Live on the last album and I got some stuff coming out on J-Live's album. I was doing stuff for J-Live's album and he came down and played me kind of the "practice" idea. I just took the idea that he kind of gave me. He had the song "Practice" and it was just kind of like "yo I wanna flip the Allen Iverson press conference" so when he left, I just flipped the beat and kind of chopped the press conference up and put it in so that it would be on beat and then he came back and laid his vocals. "Practice" is gonna be on his album also. It's one of those things where "this is a dope idea, put it out on your album and put it out on mine too" and it was just that mine came out before his but you know J is incredible. He's one of those guys that DJ's, makes beats, and he rhymes. The funny thing about this album is almost everyone that I worked with, we have all talked about possibly doing their album together. Like "yeah we need to do the Jeff/J-Live album" or "yeah we need to do the Jeff/Jean Grae album" because I had so much fun working with them.

thaFormula.com - How about a Jeff/Big Daddy Kane album?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Me and Kane always talk about doing that and especially going on the road. It's funny because I'm getting a lot of good feedback. The record I did with Big Daddy Kane to me is Big Daddy Kane 2007. There was a lot of people that was like "wow Jeff is gonna do this record with Kane." They though that I was just gonna put a beat on and Kane was gonna do Raw 2007 and it's kind of like the biggest mistake I feel that a lot of artists try to make is, I don't want to make a record for a 16 year old. I can't make a record for a 16 year old. One of the reasons why I say that if The Temptations did a record and tried to rap on it, how would you have felt? You would have been like "what are you guys doing?" I pay attention to my son. My son knows when like one of these greats try to say "let me be relevant to the kids today." It's like you can't. At the end of the day what I realize about the Temptations is my mom rolled with The Temptations when she was 10, my mom rolled with them when she was 20, my mom rolled with them when she was 30, my mom rides with them throughout their career and that's the same thing with a Big Daddy Kane and Rakim and the rest of them. It's kind of like you have got to let these guys grow and you got to grow with them.

thaFormula.com - Unfortunately it doesn't seem to happen that way…

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Well I think that has a lot to do with the industry side of it because you got a Big Daddy Kane who was so relevant on radio that some of these guys don't know how to live in a world when they are not on Hot 97. I remember when Will and Jada hosted one of the awards shows, I was in the house with my son and the Fugees came out and I'm jumping up and down like "oh my god they are back, this is it" and I'm partying, I'm jumping up and down and I'm looking over at my son and my son was looking at me like I was crazy and it hit me. I love the Fugees, I love A Tribe Called Quest, we'd love for them to get back together, but where are you gonna hear the record at? What station are you gonna hear the record at? Your not gonna hear it on hot 97 in New York. So where are you gonna hear the record at and I realize like "wow, this is serious because we don't have a platform." Let me correct it, we do have a platform but it's not being used. In every city that you go in, we have an Adult Contemporary station. We have a station that will play Frankie Beverly and Maze. We have a station that will play Stevie Wonder. We have a station that will play BBD. Why don't they play LL? He was out at the same time BBD was. I think we just have to change that whole rule of the Adult Contemporary stations saying "we don't play rap," because you know what? I'm 42 years old and I grew up with Hip-Hop. How you gonna ex me out? How you gonna play just half of what I grew up with? They need to understand that yo, A Tribe Called Quest was very important to me. Big Daddy Kane was very important to me. Not just what they did, but what they will do now. Because if we had a station that played these guys, then I believe these guys wouldn't be afraid to make records.

thaFormula.com - It's funny you say that because I always talk about how there is Classic Rock stations everywhere, but not one classic Hip-Hop station on the radio?

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Absolutely, and you know what the classic rock stations is the reason why the Police are back out on the road. You don't think Tribe would be back on the road? I tell people "put together a Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince, LL Cool J, Salt N Pepa, Kid N Play, EPMD, Big Baddy Kane, De La Soul, Doug E Fresh and Slick Rick tour and see if it don't sell out in every major city!" How come somebody hasn't done it? The crazy thing is if we had the station that continues to play these guys music, now we got the sponsor.

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